Artillery Magazine

Month: July 2017

  • “King of the Yees”

    “King of the Yees”

    What is Chinatown, and what does it mean to a younger generation who can’t even speak Chinese?  The play “King of the Yees” (through August 6) makes an attempt to address that issue, via the story of a father-daughter relationship at the crossroads.  It is also about theater, and how one way to keep things lively is to keep switching between presentational modes, as playwright Lauren Yee does.  At the outset we’re introduced to Lauren, a 30ish Chinese American woman, and Larry, her father, standing in front of the Yee Family Association building and arguing whether that association (or Chinatown for that matter) has any relevance anymore.  They’re interrupted by the “real” father (Francis Jue), who’s curious about how he’s being portrayed.  At which point the “real” Lauren (Stephenie Soohyun Park), author of the play, steps down from the audience.  She has already moved to New York, and plans to move even farther — to Berlin, where her non-Chinese husband has found a job.  In repeatedly speaking directly to the audience and having actors appear in the audience’s space, “King” cleverly plays with breaking down the “fourth wall” of theater. 

    Francis Jue and Stephenie Soohyun Park in the world premiere production of “King of the Yees.” Photo by Craig Schwartz.

    Playwright Yee (yes, the real-life Lauren Yee) depicts Chinatown as a rickety funhouse, full of hokey thrills and distorted mirrors.  She cycles through a number of Chinese stereotypes in this play – the overbearing parent, the Chinatown mafia gangster, the carping shopkeeper, the healer with the long white beard – but she twists them just so that we are both laughing at them, and laughing with them.  There’s a lot of wink-wink in the portrayals – as if to say, “Yeah, we know we’re ridiculous, and we want you to know that we know!”  Larry is not only the overbearing parent, he’s also a gung-ho volunteer campaigner for Chinese American politician Leland Yee (who later turns out to be a crook – yes, real life tossed in here).   The healer is a chiropractor who also does acupuncture and herbs, and wears a fake white beard like the master in old Hong Kong martial arts movies.  Using minimal props – a double door that’s the entrance to the Yee Family Association, two long rods hung over the stage that are turned to create different shapes, and projected images – the play manages to transport us on a crazy Surrealistic joyride.

    There is indeed much that’s funny and a little that is memorable.  As Larry, Jue is especially outstanding, His smooth sense of comic timing in delivering his lines and his physical limberness steal the show.  Also remarkable for her energetic versatility is Angela Lin, who appears as the “stage” Lauren plus nearly a dozen other roles.  Her high-camp portrayal of a cheongsam-decked shopkeeper in Chinatown in part two – with some kind of weird singsong Asian accent (it sounds cross between Vietnamese and Malay-Chinese) — is hilarious. Unfortunately, Park, playing the lead Lauren, seems curiously downbeat.  It could be that is because her character is the “straight man” to everyone else’s shenanigans.  She’s also generally disapproving of what’s going on around her, like the whole concept of family associations whose membership were reserved for men, for example, and of her father’s overenthusiastic support for Leland Yee.   

    L-R: Rammel Chan, Stephenie Soohyun Park and Francis Jue in the world premiere production of “King of the Yees.” Photo by Craig Schwartz.

    “King” is a play you really want to like, because it works so hard at being likable – but like the class clown, it keeps devolving into farce, nearly slapstick, to give the audience a quick laugh and to keep things moving.  This nervous tic also keeps derailing the play, as scenes are constantly played for laughs, and the near-serious section at the end, a conversation between Lauren and her father, feels like an anomaly.   In the end “King” feels like a work-in-progress, and some serious-minded tweaking could make this a fully realized piece of theater.

    “King of the Yees” (through August 6)

    Kirk Douglas Theatre

    9820 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232

    https://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/

    TEL (213) 628-2772

  • Past and Present: LA Art in the ’90s

    Past and Present: LA Art in the ’90s

    The recognized History of Art is marked by a movement, our blue-chip Art Stars and our institutions. Often more interesting and dynamic, the smaller histories of a regional art community are established by the galleries, art spaces and the people who support them. The many art communities of Los Angeles throughout its times have woven a colorful and innovative narrative.

    The period that straddles the new millennium was exceptionally busy and fertile. A lack of galleries created a vibrant alternative art scene, which challenged the ways in which we view and engage with art. Miller Durazo Contemporary Artists Projects was one of the “most established” of these many alternative art spaces.

    Artist Robert Miller, empowered with a BFA from Otis and an MFA from UCLA, started his own curatorial exercise with Miller Fine Art. In 1995, he joined forces with pal Martin Durazo who was earning his MFA at UCLA after graduating from Pitzer College with a BA.

    Robert Miller

    Every artist has a day job and Miller was managing real estate properties. Through his grapevine, he secured a space in an old Mediterranean-esque commercial building in the heart of a busy Jewish ghetto on Pico at Robertson Boulevards. Both active in the art world, the two friends, adventure-minded curators, created Miller Durazo Contemporary Artists Projects.

    Powered by enthusiasm, wit and discovery, the gallery was an instant success and became an immediate fixture on the city scene. Over a long run, the busy gallery participated in two international art fairs, more than 60 solo shows and multiple group exhibitions. Their annual open call, the $99 Show, attracted superstars such as Paul McCarthy, Don Suggs, Peter Hailey and Mary Kelly.

    Like all things that end in Los Angeles, the price per square foot flew over the moon and the neighborhood was gentrified. Miller and Durazo had new projects to pursue. Newly married, Robert Miller was making art and expecting twins. Martin Durazo was stepping up his game; he had joined the stable of famed gallerist Susanne Vielmetter.

    Martin Durazo

    Recently, the innovative history of Miller Durazo Contemporary Artists Projects was on view at Rio Hondo College with the retrospective show Lift Off. A culture was celebrated and colleagues reunited. Los Angeles, the great shining city by the sea, has changed much since Miller Durazo closed its doors. Most interesting, their stable of artists are still making art with the same passions of their past.

    Following are thirteen artists and the recollections of their life and times with Miller Durazo Contemporary Artists Projects.

     

    Micol Hebron

    Feminism 4D (Living feminism in all directions, in all times)
    Facebook and Instagram


    “I showed a suite of photographs in one of their “$99 Store” exhibitions, back when the 99 Cent Stores were having their heyday. It was a series of video stills from my Fountains video. Artist Christopher Haun bought one set, and I believe Chris Acuna-Hansen bought another. It was one of my first shows outside of school and one of the first works that I sold (the other being a ceramic sculpture of planes intersecting buildings, eerily foreshadowing 9/11, six years later).

    “It was very exciting and was one of the events that gave me an inkling of what it meant to be a ‘real’ artist: making, showing and selling work. I felt ‘professional.’ Robert Miller and Martin Durazo were so amazing because they were totally bananas, breaking all the rules, but they were also serious. Their integrity and passion about making and showing work was infectious and inspirational. They expected a lot, and in so doing, elicited a lot from those who showed at MDCA. There was tremendous energy.

    “Art Star Skip Arnold was hanging around in his black leather motorcycle jacket and white tank top. He was one of the first artists I met in real life, after having learned about him in school. There’s something magical and amazing about getting to live within the pages of a history book – and among the characters who were presented in your classes as famous, important and influential.

    “The mid-late 90’s was an interesting time in LA and at UCLA. It was in the wake of the Culture Wars, and in the middle of Identity Politics. UCLA had a truly all-star faculty line-up, and there was a LOT of attention on the school at the time.

    “The energy and excitement was high, as was the pressure. Jason Rhodes was Paul McCarthy’s protégé; the Khedoori twins were seducing everyone with their thoughtful and critical work. (All the undergrads were trying to remember which one of them was dating Jason.) Jennifer Schlossberg was working on what would become her tell-all book about the shenanigans at UCLA at the time; Charlie Ray was getting stoned with students on his sailboat; Paul McCarthy had brought a young, then barely known artist named Murakami to guest teach in the New Genres department. (Murakami’s class was my first TA-ship.)

    “Life in the grad studios was intense and awesome. We seemed to be there all the time. Everyone was very serious about their work and their practices, and we virtually lived in the studios.

    “During that time period there was a robust scene of alternative art spaces. The club scene in Hollywood was amazing then, too. Michael Arata was doing the One Night Stand exhibitions in hotels; Dave Muller was doing Three Day Weekend. Mary Leigh Cherry was doing exhibitions in her garage in Venice.

     

    Max Presneill

    Artist & Curator

    Max Presneill

    “I moved to California in 1997 without knowing anyone here. As I tried to engage with the LA art scene, slowly and self-consciously, there were a number of times when more established people in the scene were rude or dismissive, although most people were very nice.

    “Then I bumped into the Boys, Martin and Robert. I finally met some peeps who were unpretentious but knew their stuff and were having a blast! They were inviting, inclusive and I felt like I had finally found a small section of the tribe I wanted to be a member of.

    “These were folks to get fucked up with and to hang with, even when no art was in sight. A tight group of people seemed to meet and become friends during their openings – a bringing together of the waifs and outcasts, the insiders and the ambitious, looking for stress free comrades to shoot the shit with.

    “I started Raid Projects back then to try and follow the same kind of DIY support for artists as these two were doing. That helped integrate me into their scene and led to showing with both and becoming friends with Martin, Robert and Habib from POST. We have all shown with each other, at each other’s spaces. My bubble-view is that POST, MDCA and Raid Projects were the scene for emerging artists back then. It should have had its own soundtrack!

     

    Mike Vegas

    “Martin Durazo and I had worked together at Cooke’s Crating, too. He was either still at UCLA or freshly graduated when he and Robert started doing the gallery. I remember the space was on the second floor. You had to walk up a thin set of stairs to get up there. Three rooms: a small room that faced onto Pico, a smaller room that was in the hall, and a larger room that faced onto the parking lot. They also hung stuff in the hallways. Usually they did group shows, or split up single artists into each room.

    “I started going to all the openings there. They were always a party. And it was a group of people like me: young, naive, starting out, and still believing in the power of art. (You only get to be like that once in your life, and I miss those days.)

    “Nobody was really concerned about selling. We were all happy to show. We all dreamed of being art stars someday. I have fond memories of sitting in the back of Jared Pankin and Kelly McLane’s pick up truck drinking cheap beer in the back parking lot. Most of us would hang out there partying. It was usually pretty hot upstairs in the gallery space, especially in summer.

    “My solo show was in July of 1998. I had showed some of my porno collages with Patricia Faure a few months before in a large group show that included Baldessari and Salomon Huerta. (It was called “Some Lust.”) Martin had seen the work and really liked it.

    “I hung 132 individual pieces on the walls of the large back room. Each was a 6″ x 9” unframed piece of paper with a porn cut out in the middle. I hung them with photo corners, a pain in the ass to do. They covered the walls like wallpaper, in a sort of grid pattern.

    LA Weekly “Pick of the Week,” July 31–August 6, 1998

    “A couple of weeks later Peter Frank made the show “Pick of the Week” in the LA Weekly. (July 31-August 6, 1998 issue.) It was the first review I ever got, and I believe it was the first review that Miller Durazo got.

    “And I always felt like Robert Miller was the adult in the relationship. He was the one who made it work. Martin was the troublemaker. And then there was Bob. Who was a Hollywood agent? I never knew what his relationship to the gallery was. Saw him at the Rio Hondo opening and it brought back alot of memories.

     

    Anders Lansing

    Oil/Flashe on canvas
    Miller Durazo shows: Solo: Vacation, 1997; Group: Drawplay, 1999; Plumb, 1997; Winter, 1997

    “Great openings in the parking lot out back.

    “My Art Star moment was when my painting appeared in the background of Martin’s MFA film. “Suck it Up” was shot at the gallery.

    During the ’95 to ’03 period, what was your life like? “Living the life, post-divorce…studio downtown and shacking up with my girlfriend in Hollywood.
    What was your art like? “I was making minimalist finish-fetish paintings that were then inserted into environments that I built. How has your art evolved now? The work is less minimal and deals with a different type of environment

    I think along with POST, Miller Durazo created a space for exhibiting artists that was not dependent on sales but ideas. Martin and Robert are good guys.

     

    Martin Durazo

    Painting
    Instagram

    Martin Durazo

    “I think the first show was fantastic, so many people came to support. It was a group show called Winter and a solo project by Michael and Magdalena Frimkess. I remember looking out the rear window of the gallery, down to the parking lot and seeing 300+ people.

    “The other show that stood out was the debut of Ruby Osorio’s girl drawings. A smash hit and the beginning of a great career.

    “I was really touched when several of my professors at UCLA gave work to our annual $99 dollar show, Paul McCarthy, Peter Halley, Don Suggs, and Mary Kelly to name a few.

    “From 1995 to ’98, I was an MFA candidate at UCLA. Afterwards, I taught and had shows at POST, the Richard Heller Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design and Susanne Vielmetter.

    “While directing the gallery, I had the pleasure of working with so many artists and we all shared our vision of art and creativity.

    “I have continued to curate the occasional show and exhibit. Most recently, a solo show at the Barbara Davis Gallery in Houston, and a group show in Riga, Latvia, curated by Popper Publishing at Gallery Alma.

    “The time of MDCA seems so long ago but working with Robert Miller and all the participating artists on LIFT OFF reminded me how much of each effort was rooted in love and sharing.

     

    Michael Arata

    Sculpture, activities, photo, drawing, painting, installation.

    Michael Arata

    Your shows at Miller Durazo? “Killer Rainbows. I mostly remember random openings. It was a nice gritty time to get together with other artist and complain, dialog, plan and socialize. It was more like an art club.

    “Life was bleak in the mid-nineties. I was teaching for low income and the future did not look promising. Things got much better as we approached the millennium. I was making “Pet Space” sculpture and photos. This included the colorful and grayscale rainbows. Content oriented.” How has your art evolved now? “Same, just more edgy content.

    Michael Arata

    “Miller Durazo filled an alternative niche, like the “One Night Stand” shows we were doing at the Farmer’s Daughter Motel on Fairfax. (A series of rooms were rented for curated artists to exhibit their work.) There were about six or seven alternative for-profit spaces at the time.

     

    Ruby Osorio

    Drawing/Painting

    “I had my first real solo show at Miller Durazo. I remember that I had been making a lot of these small, intimate drawings for myself and never really thought about making them public, but they asked to show a batch of them. I had no idea what to expect from the exhibition.

    “On opening night, Miller Durazo sold almost all of the drawings. It was an exciting time. There was a lot of social energy around the space, and for me, there was this first sense of the joy of making and sharing work with a wider audience.

    “Miller Durazo opened up a lot of creativity and opportunity for me as a result of that show.”

     

    Emily Wagner

    Works On Paper

    “Miller Durazo was a hot bed of young artists on the cusp of being discovered. They took risks, and sought off the beaten path talent. A lot of amazing artists came out of there and went on to make significant waves in the art world. I went on to being repped at a little Chinatown gallery, Acuna-Hansen.

    “Martin worked closely to push me, always, and challenged me at every turn. Just when I thought I was done, he would say, great start! He was my mentor, and still is, if I ever need an eye or an ear. I trust him implicitly. Robert was always lovely, warm and supportive. He brought a real family element to the space and always made the artists feel worthy and deserving. It was truly special in that way.”

     

    Kelly McClane

    Kelly McClane

    Jared Pankin

    Jared Pankin

    “My name is Jared Pankin. I am a sculptor. I work with wood, glue and lots of sawdust and fake animal parts. I also am a master potter. I live with my wife of 26 years, Kelly McLane. We live in the woods, across the street from the southernmost point of the Sequoia National Forest. I went to graduate school with Robert Miller and have kept in touch with him over the years. If he opened a gallery today, Kelly and I would show with him in a heartbeat. That’s how much we like and trust him. Martin was a great addition because he was and still is tapped into the art world beat.

    “Kelly and I had a solo show at Miller Durazo in 1997 along with artist Eve Wood. One thing that stands out the most about those years was you went to the openings not only to support the gallery, but all your friends were there. Beer in the parking lot, sitting on the tailgate of Martin’s recent pick up truck, after that is was El Coyote or Robert’s place for more beer. Everyone was welcome, and even though we live in the woods, when we do go to LA, we see old friends we met at Miller Durazo.”

     

    Seth Kaufman

    Artist

    Seth Kaufman
    Seth Kaufman 2

    “It was an intimate space that seemed womb like, more akin to a private collector’s lair than a public art gallery… as I walked up the stairs I remember having the feeling of entering into a safe space, a private club, populated by likeminded art lovers, away from the pressures of daily life and even in and around the competitive art world. It felt like something smart and sweet was happening.”

     

    Gordy Grundy

    Painter

    Gordy Grundy

    When Robert Miller reintroduced me to two small abstract paintings for the Lift Off show, it was like an old hook-up had called to inform me that I was the father of a teenager. After the shock and confusion, the fog of the past began to clear. It was like seeing a dear old friend.

    In the days of Miller Durazo, the LA art world was growing in size and relevance. Grad schools were pumping out artists and the territories were clearly defined. The characters were outsized. The stories scorched earth. The art world was humming an international tune. The culture in the petri dish was vibrant and buzzing. Los Angeles, in all her glory, was shaking and Miller Durazo Contemporary Artists Projects was smack in the middle of it.

     

    Maura Bendett

    Instagram and Artillery Magazine, 2016 feature story

    “Between 1998-2000, I went to most of the openings at Miller Durazo, because I liked hanging out with Robert and Martin, and all my friends were in shows there. The openings were really fun and involved a lot of drinking. This was when beer and wine were cheap, and you couldn’t have an opening without them, it was expected.

    “Miller Durazo was down the street from where I lived with my boyfriend. So when Robert asked me to participate in the $100 auctions that he and Martin organized at their gallery, of course I said, ‘Yes.’

    “I loved the vibe at Miller Durazo, and the building/gallery itself. It seemed to spring up and exist alongside the old butcher shops, Jewish bric-a-brac shops, synagogues, upstairs in the classic Pico at Robertson neighborhood, and I felt at home. It was small and intimate and a perfect location to hang and socialize. I think these small galleries (Miller Durazo, POST, Domestic Setting, TRI, etc.) were instrumental in fostering connections among young developing artists. Where else could we go to meet each other and connect?

    “I realize how awesome and simple my life was back then between 1995-1999. Pre-internet, it was so easy because the art world was small and all the emerging artists in LA seemed to know each other and hang out in a few galleries:
    MDCA (Martin and Robert), Domestic Setting (Bill Radawec), POST (Habib Kheradyar), TRI (Rory Devine), LASCA (Carl Berg), Sue Spaid Fine Art (Sue Spaid).

    “I was in my mid-late 30’s, worked odd jobs, was beginning to teach and my boyfriend and I lived month to month. We were always broke, but I didn’t care because I had an awesome studio on Washington Boulevard at Crenshaw (now called West Adams), and all I wanted to do (and did!) was make art, show it, and hang out at openings.

    “It really was an idyllic time, you could easily drive to three or four different openings in one night, from MDCA to POST downtown, drinking at each opening and very little traffic! I feel really grateful that I lived in LA and got involved in the art world in the 1990’s. It was a special time, because mainly it was before the internet. We still used slides! I still had a pick-up truck with a stick shift! I was super busy and I was constantly in shows, for like five to six solid years.

    “The opening of the LIFT OFF show was really fun, catching up with old friends. It’s very heartening to see my peers continue to make art and I feel really grateful that I lived in LA and got involved in the art world in the 1990’s.”

    “Given all of the changes to our world and the difficulties of a life in the arts, it is very heartening to see that most of my peers are steadfastly making art. It is the life we have chosen.”

    — –+– —

    Today, Robert Miller is a tenured professor and gallery director at Rio Hondo College, the site of Lift Off. He continues to work and exhibit his ceramics.

    Martin Durazo continues to show locally and internationally. The celebrated Barbara Davis Gallery in Houston, Texas represents him. LINK: http://www.barbaradavisgallery.com/artists.html

    This reunion of artists, all kindred souls, demonstrates the dynamic and calling of a long life in the arts. No matter how high-minded the pursuit, friendship and beer are always at the heart of it all.

    —————————-

    Gordy Grundy is a Pacific-based artist. His visual and literary work can be found at www.GordyGrundy.com

     

  • CURRENT EVENTS: documenta 14

    CURRENT EVENTS: documenta 14

    Every five years the sedate city of Kassel, Germany, launches an art expo that attempts to capture the zeitgeist of our times, documenta. This 14th edition was an ambitious one, costing over $36 million, with one part opening in Athens, Greece, in April (ending July 16), and the other part starting in Kassel in June and ending September 17. The Kassel expo presents work by some 160 international artists, with shows and installations scattered about 35 sites—exhibition galleries, public squares, the main train station and movie theaters.

    While the theme of documenta was supposedly “Learning from Athens,” artistic director Adam Szymczyk and his team tuned into hot-button current issues, such as immigration, free speech, environmentalism, colonialism and pop culture. Frankly, it was a matter of too much of everything, a dizzying Art Tower of Babel. Far better had the curators exercised more curatorial choice. If they had chosen 40 or 50 artists, say, and shown more work by each artist, the experience could have been more impactful and satisfying.

    Marta Minujín, The Parthenon of Books, 2017,
 steel, books, and plastic sheeting
, Friedrichsplatz, Kassel, documenta 14, photo: Roman März

    Two of my favorite works incorporated books—yes, those quaint old things. Sited in Friedrichsplatz, the main public square of Kassel, Marta Minujín’s The Parthenon of Books, has become the emblem of documenta 14. It’s a large, impressive steel structure echoing the form and dimensions of the Parthenon in Athens, the legendary birthplace of Western civilization, and is covered with books suspended in plastic sheeting, books that have been banned (and donated by the public). It makes fascinating browsing as you walk around. You’ll find everything from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita to—surprise!—J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In recreating her 1983 artwork, the Argentinian artist comments on the persistence of censorship.

    Meanwhile, in an indoor venue, Maria Eichhorn’s installation of Unlawfully Acquired Books from Jewish Ownership reflects her ongoing interest in examining institutions—in this case, the Nazi government which appropriated whole libraries (and art collections) from its Jewish population. The German artist discovered that some of these books ended up in the Berlin Central and City State Library, and has placed a selection into a very tall bookcase, accompanied by photographs and documents about the thefts. The project includes a website where the public may report what they know of “orphaned property.”

    Maria Eichhorn, Unlawfully acquired books from Jewish ownership, installation view, Neue Galerie, Kassel, documenta 14, © Maria Eichhorn/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017, photo: Mathias Völzke

    Several of the most interesting pieces are outdoors or part of the “Glass Pavilions,” free for all see. Monument for Strangers and Refugees by Nigerian artist Olu Oguibe is a 52-foot concrete obelisk in Konigsplatz, a plaza in major shopping area. Around the lower section is a phrase from the New Testament in four languages—Arabic, English, German and Turkish—“I was a stranger and you took me in.” It is a nod to the immigration crisis, and perhaps especially to the German government’s decision to take in over a million refugees since 2015.

    Olu Oguibe, Das Fremdlinge und Flüchtlinge Monument (Monument for strangers and refugees), 2017, concrete, Königsplatz, Kassel, documenta 14, photo: Michael Nast

    The “Glass Pavilions” storefronts along a once-prosperous shopping avenue are a particularly innovative showcase, and free to enter. In one former shop, Mounira Al Solh has recreated the simple Beirut bakery her father ran in the mid-1980s in an installation called Nassib’s Bakery. It provided food in a time of scarcity and was highly popular with locals until bombed and burned to the ground. (She retells the story in nearby text.) Downstairs she has filled several rooms with ink sketches of Middle Eastern and North African migrants she has met in Kassel and Athens, the diaspora of the dispossessed.

    Mounira Al Solh, works from I Strongly Believe in Our Right to Be Frivolous, 2012–17, graphite on paper, 
installation view, Glass Pavilions on Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse, Kassel, documenta 14, photo: Fred Dott

    Incidentally, despite all this denunciation of censorship and oppression, our guide during a walking tour of documenta was censored. He was providing us some background in the lobby of the Fridericianum building when a young man from documenta came up and told him he couldn’t be acting as a guide since he wasn’t an official, designated guide. “Ah, so you have to ask me questions,” our guide, who had seen many a Documenta, said to us, “and I will respond.” And we did, and he did. So much for freedom of speech!

     

  • Alice Cooper Discovers $10 Million Lost Warhol

    Alice Cooper Discovers $10 Million Lost Warhol

    Alice Cooper has discovered an Andy Warhol artwork, more than 40 years after it was given to him as a gift. 

    The rock musician had forgotten about the work, which was being kept in storage, until it was found “rolled up in a tube” in a locker along with a collection of 1970s stage props. 

    ‘Little Electric Chair’ – a silkscreen from Warhol’s Death and Disaster series – was presented to Cooper as a gift by his late girlfriend Cindy Lang, after they were introduced to the artist and spent time with him in New York’s famed Studio 54. 

     A similar version of the artwork was sold in 2014 at Christie’s for $10.5 million (£8m). 
  • “Creatives” Gather at Art of Freelance

    “Creatives” Gather at Art of Freelance

    So, the event I’m about to gossip with you about was brought to you by Art of Freelance —a “10-week online course for creatives who want to push themselves to the next level.” I feel obligated to say the following; the emergence of the word “creative” as a title to describe someone just rubs me all the wrong ways. They’re a creative WHAT? Producer? Director? Professional? Did you mean to say “artist” but you’re too cool to be earnest? It’s just such a vague word, and I have actually dedicated time to try to come up with an alternative descriptor to unleash upon the world to replace it, but I came up short. So now I’ve resigned to referring to myself and my colleagues as :shudder: “creatives.” (gag reflex)

    Moving right along… participating in this accelerator program culminates in an exhibition that’s open to the public, with “top tier talent seekers from the worlds of advertising, entertainment, editorial, and fine art” in attendance, which makes me wonder why I got an invite, but okay. I arrived at Little Space (formerly known as “Space Camp”) Gallery to find it filled with the kind of people that I usually try to avoid; they’re always “on,” making sure they’re dressed in order to signal that they belong to a certain crowd, and it exhausts me. I don’t mean to denigrate anyone at all—it’s a part of the hustle when you’re a creative professional in Los Angeles—it’s just not for me. So as a result, I didn’t find the event very enjoyable as a whole.

    Argentinian yumminess from Elvio’s Chimichurri, coming right up

    As someone who’s worked in event production for almost 15 years, I have all kinds of critiques for the venue that was chosen—which I think is a fabulous space on its own tbh. And considering how much participants in this program shell out per week to be a part of it, I’d have thought the bar and food vendor would have been purely complimentary. But, knowing what I know about everything it takes to iterate a mid-scale event repeatedly, maybe they’re still working out budgetary kinks. So no marks off for that.

    Campaign for London brand Cutier & Gross by art director and wardrobe stylist Jessie Jamz

    The work on display ranged from conceptual photography to short films to accessory/apparel launches to ad campaigns. It ranged from amateurish to professional. It ranged from “meh” to “noice!” My favorite was a card game devised by a young man named James R. Petix. He didn’t want me to reveal too much about it because he’s working on making everything lawsuit-proof and trademarked, but I’ll give you a few hints: memes, instagram, and the internet’s official mascot. The keys to my heart.

    Nina Beckhardt and Mattieu Young, two of Art of Freelance’s co-founders

    Verdict: This event wasn’t for me. Who it’s for? People who want to network, recruit and collaborate with both up-and-coming and established commercial “creatives.” Everyone who participates in Art of Freelance will join a cohort, and it will culminate in an exhibition. If that interests you, definitely enroll or sign up to receive invites to their events: seeing as how this is a relatively young program, one hopes these will only get better over time.

    Photos by Alexia Lewis

  • Face to Face: Los Angeles Collects Portraiture

    Face to Face: Los Angeles Collects Portraiture

    As noted in an Artillery Pick quite recently, portraiture is the oldest form of ‘identity art’, and moreover, representation itself. It is ‘naming’ in the largest sense – placing, identifying, classifying, narrating, and implicitly conceptualizing, though without explanation. In other words, at its most successful, it gives us some sense of what it means to be alive in a specific time and place. To the extent that the classifying impulse has often functioned as an aspect of colonialism, we can be grateful that Face to Face, the California African American Museum’s current show of portraiture, is liberated from that taint. The current show is bracing both in terms of its chronological and stylistic range, and its clear reflection of L.A. collectors’ on-going engagement with this work. But what is particularly fascinating is the extent to which over the course of that liberation from the vestiges of colonialism, African-American artists have transformed the classifying impulse into something larger, more broadly conceptual and frankly subversive – e.g., the performative aspect of work by Mickalene Thomas and Tschabalala Self, or crossing the representational threshold into the domain of fiction, as in the ‘imagined’ (or is it?) portraiture of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. The iconic ‘reversal’ (or perhaps more literally here, ‘inversion’) is another strategy represented here. It’s the polar-opposite of, say, Kehinde Wiley (who is also represented here – in one of his more interesting paintings), where the iconic aspect of a subject is referenced and simultaneously subverted. Titus Kaphar does this quite literally in his 2014 Jerome VII, where the lower half of the subject’s head, floating in its gold leafed field, is enshrouded by gold-flecked tar. Even the most straightforward and conventional of the portraits evince a sense of flux, the conditional (and perhaps aspirational) – always moving towards another place, another way of being. In this relatively compact exhibition, curators Naima J. Keith and Diana Nawi have in turn offered viewers another way of seeing that process play out. 

    California African American Museum (CAAM)
    600 State Drive – Exposition Park
    Los Angeles, CA 90037
    Show runs thru October 8, 2017

  • KENNY SCHARF

    KENNY SCHARF

    “Kenny Scharf: Blox and Bax” at Honor Fraser gallery in Culver City this past spring. This was Scharf’s fifth exhibition with Honor Fraser, featuring back-by-popular-demand performance artist and BFF Ann Magnuson. The crowd was abuzz,  art stars aligned, vivid colors abound. Photos by Bill Farroux.

  • Waters World

    Waters World

    Film director John Waters is best known for his trilogy of ’60s and ’70s transgressive cult cinema classics Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and Desperate Living. These films used a repeating troupe of actors, the most famous being the stars Divine, Mink Stole, and Edith “The Egg Lady” Massey; the actors and regular film production staff were known as the Dreamlanders, named after Waters’ production company. In the years since these films were released, the movies have achieved legendary status, for the enduring punk campiness of Waters’ social commentary ensures that each new generation discovers that these films fit their vision of both contemporary and historical avant-garde cinema.

    At the time that these classic Waters films were first-run, no commercial enterprise was associated with them other than ticket sales; the overwhelming assortment of mercantile goods that now accompany a film’s release simply didn’t exist then. Recognizing the popularity of the Waters films and the absence of any legitimate merchandise for them, curator Tyson Tabbert has produced a tribute exhibition called “Lost Merchandise of the Dreamlanders”, featuring “fake” vintage retail goods for these films, items like Pink Flamingo bed sheets, Aunt Ida action figures and children’s costumes of characters from Desperate Living. Over the course of almost two years, Tabbert assembled a crew of highly talented designers to produce limited editions of such virtual merchandise, and although the devil is often in the details, it’s the details that make this show a must-see for any Waters fan.

    Handprinted Urethane Elastomer, Vacuformed PVC, 2017
    Aunt Ida Action Figure by Tyson Tabbert, Nazareth Horner, and Bart McCoy. Handprinted Urethane Elastomer, Vacuformed PVC, 2017

    The production and presentation of all the merchandise in the Dreamlanders exhibition is impeccable. Purporting to be vintage collector’s items from the 1970s, the style of the packaging is period correct and the boxes and blister packs appropriately aged. Each group of items is accompanied by a museum display card offering up a synthetic history of the production and public reaction to the merchandise. For example, very few of the Divine dolls are said to have sold because, “American girls under 12 were not ready for this kind of Barbie,” and The Queen Carlotta costumes were so unpopular that the masks were repainted and sold in the 1980s under the title “Ugly Princess.” The persuasive nature of the information is what’s really fascinating about the fake backgrounds of these items; at the opening I saw veteran fans laughing their asses off while neophytes to the Waters oeuvre were busy searching eBay to see if they could get the items at better prices.

    Goldberg Company Divine Figure Character Dolls by Kyle Lords, Tyson Tabbert, Misty Greer, Stela Licina, and Jake Puppyteeth. Resin, Urethane Elastomer, Artificial Hair, Fabric,Printed Cardstock, and PVC. 2017

    Although such retro-marketing is hardly innovative (action figures of Humphrey Bogart dressed as the detective Sam Spade have been available for some time now), it’s an effective methodology to expand a subject that has pretty much already been dissected and analyzed to the furthest degree possible; after all, it’s been 40 years since Desperate Living was released. What makes “Lost Merchandise of the Dreamlanders” a truly punk experience is the concept of making unsaleable merchandise for  movies that were themselves were unsaleable. It’s wishful thinking taken to an almost Trumpian degree. So, next time someone talks to your hand about making America great again, tell them you’re only interested in great hair and makeup.

    Earl’s 1959 Edsel Villager by Tyson Tabbert, Nazareth Horner, and Bart McCoy. Mixed Media, 2017

    Lethal Amounts

    1226 W. 7th Street

    DTLA 90017

    lethalamounts.com

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Pasadena Museum of California Art: : Interstitial

    Pasadena Museum of California Art: : Interstitial

    Collectively, the works that make up “Interstitial,” now on view at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, read like the detritus one might find in an abandoned time capsule. Curated by John David O’Brien (a regular Artillery contributor), the exhibition houses an array of objects made from everyday materials that transcend their original intent and leave viewers musing.

    Joel Otterson, American Portable Pottery Museum (1994), courtesy of the artist and PMCA.

    Among the seven contemporary Los Angeles-based artists whose work appears in the show, Joel Otterson’s use of cliched tropes underscores this theme. Take American Portable Pottery Museum (1994). The roll-away piece made of copper tubing displays some 75 pieces of decorative pottery, categorically arranged by color and shape. While the piece conjures the economic boom of the 1950s that spurred the concept of mass production, the compilation of vases, planters and figurines, commonly collected for their kitschy aesthetic, exemplifies Otterson’s use of domestic wares as a means to produce high forms of art.

    Aili Schmeltz, Twisted Hourglass Generator VI (2014), courtesy of the artist and PMCA.

    Like Otterson, Aili Schmeltz integrates elements from the decorative arts into her work. Twisted Hourglass Generator VIII (2014) and Twisted Hourglass Generator VI (2014) both engender nostalgia for an era bygone. Appearing like old and abandoned macramé projects crafted by a 1970’s housewife, both dangle from the ceiling like elongated chandeliers. Interestingly, the idea behind these works came from a New Age book about psionic generators (devices produced for the purpose of inciting psychic energy and paranormal activity). While summoning the supernatural wasn’t Schmeltz’s intention, per se, both of her pieces spur curiosity as viewers examine her mingling of woven yarn with an array of materials that include enamel, wood beads, oak and mirrored Formica. 

    “Interstitial,” installation view, courtesy of PMCA. Copyright: Don Milici.

    Of all the works on view, Kristen Morgin’s are most reminiscent of assemblage. Hollywoodland (2013), for example, appears like a home-made toy train, compiled by a child who’s scoured his home for random objects such as weathered record sleeves, tattered books, and vintage toys. Surprisingly, the sculptural ensemble contains no such items. Instead it comprises a collection of unfired clay facsimiles that prompt Morgin’s audience to reassess with a heightened degree of awareness.

    “Interstitial,” installation view, courtesy of PMCA. Copyright: Don Milici.

    “Interstitial” also includes free-standing works by Jeff Colson, Renée Lotenero, Rebecca Ripple and Shirley Tse. Each representing a unique display of repurposed materials, these collected pieces express O’Brien’s vision by shedding light on the interstitial space that subsists between an object’s intended use and its ability to transform into something that carries with it an entirely new meaning.

    “Interstitial,” March 5 – August 6, 2017, at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 East Union Street, Pasadena, CA 91101. pmcaonline.org.

  • Salvador Dali Corpse Exhumed In Paternity Case Media Circus

    Salvador Dali Corpse Exhumed In Paternity Case Media Circus

    She is suing the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation and the Spanish state, which inherited the surrealist painter’s works in a bid to claim a quarter of his fortune.

    A Spanish judge ordered the exhumation of Dalí’s body to enable samples to be taken from his teeth and bones to settle the paternity claim once and for all.


    Tests have previously been carried out on samples recovered from the death mask of the painter – who died aged 84 in 1989 – but findings were inconclusive.

    He had no other children and a judge ruled exhumation was the only way to resolve the case, despite an outcry from Dali fans.

    Experts were last night given access to the crypt Dali designed for himself within his museum in home town Figueres, Catalonia.

    A 1.5 tonne stone slab was lifted to open his grave at 8pm after the building was cleared of visitors.

  • 80/50 Quiet Storm

    80/50 Quiet Storm

    We read history for perspective on advancing and collapsing civilizations and their impacts on planetary life and (hopefully) an understanding of historical cycles and a sense of where we might all be headed (besides other planets). Art exhibitions, historical and otherwise, do not presume to offer this kind of perspective, but through the prism of curatorial scope and selection, can occasionally suggest parallels and intersections across a historical interval. The scope here is a range of abstraction played out between mid- to late-20th century generations – roughly ‘high baby-boom’ and ‘Gen-X’ (or possibly ‘Y’ – i.e., the pre-millennial), meaning before all hell broke loose. Curator (and gallery director) Carl Berg is a practiced hand at composing these kinds of fractured and fragmented views into coherent overviews, and this one comes across with a silken touch – a welcome note of serenity in these turbulent times. The parallels are striking: e.g., between, say Mieke Gelley’s roughly fragmented and seemingly collaged color abstractions and Samantha Thomas’s fractalized mappings/foliations in luminous blues (or her more austerely rectilinear, but aggressively pleated rendition); or Don Suggs’ Le Parc-esque pinwheels superimposed upon photographed landscapes and Devon Tsuno’s atmospheric/aquatic abstractions with their ‘interlineated’ references to actual landscape elements (less apparent here – where the emphasis is clearly on a unified field or uniformly abstracted environment). ‘Intra-generational’ comparisons can be made here, too – e.g., between Tsuno and Tom Mueske, whose eight All Over canvases in oil enamel reference a similarly unified field. The through-line is abstraction, with a variable emphasis on the gestural or expressive at one pole, and minimalism at the other (sometimes both by the same artist, e.g., Gerald Giamportone). A secondary through-line here is the natural world. Not all of the artists address this directly. Lies Kraal, Andy Kolar, and Anna-Maria Bogner all seem determinedly abstract. But (with the possible exception of Bogner – whose sculptural installation here is like an etherealized Richard Serra), even Kraal and Kolar invoke an ideal domain (of color, order, gesture) that make implicit contrast with the less-than-ideal actualities beyond the gallery’s precincts. Steve DeGroodt’s As It Should Be (2013) sums up that notion (in cloth and rattan) concretely. And I would be remiss to reference the ‘ethereal’ without drawing attention to Jae Hwa Yoo’s genius canvas here. The show is elegantly installed; and over the course of an oppressive summer (okay, the rest of one’s life), it might be worth taking a moment’s respite from the raging tumult outside for the ‘quiet storm’ whispering through this gallery’s beautifully proportioned spaces. 

    DENK Gallery
    749 E. Temple Street
    Los Angeles, CA 90012
    Show runs thru August 19, 2017

  • Chinatown Art Buffet

    Chinatown Art Buffet

    Chung King Road was a buffet of openings Saturday night, with a variety of gallerygoers overflowing into the street. Like a high school party, there were definite discrepancies between the crowds: academics and LA art stars at Charlie James Gallery; mid-careers with their young families at Coagula Curatorial; and the too-cool-for-school graffiti art horde at Gregorio Escalante.

    Charlie James gallery
    Ramiro Gomez at Charlie James

    The main artery of the street party oozed from Charlie James, where we shoved and pinched people out of the way in order to enter. The space itself was stifling; half of our experience of “Black is a Color” involved moving from room to room desperately searching for a pocket of air. The mezzanine of the gallery was literally the hottest place in the building—in more ways than just temperature: the darling of the LA art world, Ramiro Gomez, was surrounded by admirers, probably melting and internally screaming for air.

    Peter Hesse at Coagula Curatorial (note ghoulish figurines)

    Unable to withstand the giant oven any longer, we hit Coagula Curatorial, where we perused Peter Hesse’s serene paintings of wood. After noticing we were being watched from above by a pair of ghoulish figurines, we didn’t linger. Not only were we under surveillance, but also the gallery was charging five bucks for refrigerated booze. Sure, it was ice-cold temptation, but slapping a price on beer—ever heard of the starving artist?

    Repelled by the thumping house music and snapback hats at Gregorio Escalante, we were ready to pursue a late dinner, when the golden horseshoe of The Good Luck Gallery beckoned. As it turned out, we weren’t the only stragglers stumbling to The Good Luck for something refreshing: Essence Harden from Charlie James soon appeared with her cohort. Doug Harvey’s salon-style group show of zany, outsider art kept us amused until long past closing time—and we scored free ale.

     

    The Good Luck Gallery
    The Good Luck Gallery

     

  • LACMA: : Alejandro G. Iñárritu: CARNE y ARENA

    LACMA: : Alejandro G. Iñárritu: CARNE y ARENA

    Only one visitor enters Alejandro Iñárritu’s installation CARNE y ARENA at a time. If you’re lucky enough to get a ticket, you’ll begin in a startlingly cold room lit by hard fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Beat-up sneakers and water bottles lie underneath metal benches—actual shoes and bottles discarded by migrants and refugees near the US-Mexico border. Someone is watching through a security camera and tells you through loudspeakers to take off your shoes. After waiting, alarms go off alerting you to move to the next room: a warehouse-like space with a dirt floor and a long, eerie red light where two facilitators cinch you into a backpack and Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and step away, dropping you into the desert at sunset.

    Alejandro Iñárritu, CARNE y ARENA. User experiencing the art installation. Photo credit: Emmanuel Lubezki. Courtesy of LACMA.

    Iñárritu places the viewer into a scene in which about a dozen people are crossing the border. He masterfully directs the viewer’s attention from the couple that collapses, to the mother carrying a newborn, to the child caught in the spotlight from a helicopter pummeling the air while border agents furtively move in behind you. Within this scene is a dream sequence that functions as an allegory. Within the characters is a view of their anatomy; literally lean your head into one of their bodies and you see their heart beating, pounding. The six and a half-minute sequence feels like half an hour and any ordinary attempt to describe the installation’s mechanisms or what happens in that moment in the desert would, I think, diminish the effect.

    Alejandro G. Iñárritu directing a baker from El Salvador named Yoni. Yoni is dressed in a motion-capture suit and recreating a harrowing moment on his journey. Photo credit: Chachi Ramirez. Courtesy of LAMCA.

    Just as quickly, the scene ends and the facilitators hustle you into a dark hallway with quiet video portraits of the people whose stories comprise the desert scene. A Guatemalan grandmother slept in trash bags to keep warm at night. A Honduran woman pretended to be a lesbian so the Mexican police wouldn’t touch her. An eleven year old told by his parents that he was going on vacation received 12 vaccination shots while in US custody. And then the hallway ends and you’re back in Los Angeles. With only four people permitted an hour starting at $30 a ticket, and yet so riveting and immaculately realized, I wonder, why should so few people be allowed to experience it?

    Alejandro Iñárritu: CARNE y ARENA from July 2, 2017 at LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, 90036, lacma.org.

     

  • Over the Rainbow

    Over the Rainbow

    The title of the show is as ironic as it is aspirational. Most of us find ourselves in a place far more culturally fractured than we imagined less than a year ago, and pressing forward into an ever-more dystopian reality. Which is why it is as important as ever to state plainly who we are, where we live – as individuals, society, culture – who we want to be, and the society and culture we want to create. Contemporary art movements seem to be shifting away from ‘identity art,’ per se. But in a sense it’s been with us since portraiture; almost since humankind distinguished itself from its surrounding environment. Here, curator (and gallery co-director) René-Julien Praz has assembled a group of works of disparate sensibility and formal approach, from the most drily conceptual, to the formally abstract, from symbolism to the intimately documentary, even journalistic, from the gestural to the performative. What distinguishes each of the works though, and the show as a whole, is its formal power. ‘Identity’ art emphasizes disclosure as much as declarative statement. It’s an expression of terms and conditions, rather than a declaration of purpose – ‘this is where we are.’ Many of the works here play with the notion of the reveal, or the symbolic, epigrammatic reveal; also draping and transparency. There is the disclosure, and then what is held back (and something is always held back) (e.g., the photographic studies of Paul Mpagi Sepuya, or Zackary Drucker & Amos Mac’s atmospheric portrait); or alternatively, what is left behind. (Consider Sadie Barnette’s ‘strike’ of a matchbook ‘souvenir’ in her Untitled (Eagle Creek Saloon) prints.) We are an occupied country right now, and a sense of besiegement comes across with immediacy in many of these works – from Aa Bronson’s White Flag 10 (2015) to George Stoll’s Untitled (dropped American flag #4); also Matthew Chambers’ deft allusion to a ‘brave new world’ – just the other side of an exploded brick wall (New Land). Jack Pierson’s Twilight series of silkscreen/collage prints seem poignantly ironic only a few years after they were made. But, as Praz points out, these are struggles we have seen and experienced before, though perhaps never more vividly than in the 20th and 21st century. And still perhaps nowhere more vividly than in the work of Jean Genet – to whom the show pays tribute with both a drawing and 29 illustrations by Jean Cocteau of Genet’s Querelle de Brest (1948); and a long clip from Genet’s only film, Un chant d’amour (1950) – one of the greatest documents of homoerotic cinema ever produced. The film alone is worth a detour to the gallery … and then there are all those walls to smash, souvenirs to reclaim.  

    PRAZ-DELAVALLADE
    6150 Wilshire Blvd.
    Los Angeles, CA 90048
    Show runs thru August 26, 2017

  • Sprints for the Arts

    Sprints for the Arts

    Sprints. They’re good for the body, in short and intermittent bursts. Are they good for the arts?

    90x90LA was a series of inclusive literary events held 90 days in a row in 2014, hosted by Writ Large Press. They’re back at it again this year with a focus on cultural solutions for the end of times we might as well be living in. Potlucks, readings, collaborations, round tables and so forth—spread throughout downtown, Little Tokyo and South Central—with Cielo Gallery as the project’s base camp.

    It sounds ambitious. It sounds exhausting. It sounds insane. Which makes it worth doing, if you ask me.

    Me pretending to be an extrovert with Renee Johnson giving me the thumbs up!

    I went to the opening event at Cielo not knowing what to expect. It was a refreshingly low-key potluck, with most of the people in attendance being writers. I felt a little bit like an outsider because I’m a visual and performance artist so I’m unfamiliar with that community. I pretended to be an extrovert and struck up conversations with a dancer/teacher/poet, a body painter, Cielo gallery owner Skira Martinez, and co-coordinator of both the series and Writ Large, Chiwan Choi. With a focus on community and the spirit of collaboration, this opening night was a lot less extravaganza, and a lot more “let us all gird our loins.”

    Skira Martinez and Chiwan Choi

    After looking over the schedule posted on their website, and then at my own, I decided that the next event in the series I’d make an effort to show up for would be “Drunken Masters Comedy,” held at Wolf and Crane in Little Tokyo—great bar! The way this event works: comedic writers debut essays they’ve been working on, and the “masters”— comedians and writers working professionally in entertainment—do a shot before each set and then offer useful critique.

    Shots!
    The “Masters” L to R: Janine Brito, Kevin Kataoka, Tamra Brown

    It was such a great show! The audience had an opportunity to hear from four different writers of various backgrounds, three of whom were women (fuck yeah). It’s a brave thing to get up in front of strangers and offer your creative work for judgment and critique, and comedy is NOT easy. So kudos to Lisa Deng, Amanda Choo Quan, Tanha Dil and Michael L. Porter. They each offered us deeply personal, extremely relatable and funny stories pulled from their private lives, not-so-private experiences, and musings about the the City of Angels. The judges for the evening were hilarious in their critiques, never mean spirited, and really cared about offering advice that the comedians could use to push the comedy of their stories without disrespecting the source of what made them great.

    The evening’s first two performers: Lisa Deng and Amanda Choo Quan with her Lionel Richie mask

    At the event, I had the opportunity to finally meet Peter Woods, another co-founder of Writ Large Press. He confirmed that as a result of this past Sunday’s event—a gathering of minds where curators and event-planners worked with intention—78 out of the 90 days were now filled.

    I have to say, I love the DIY spirit of the entire endeavor; the focus on community and inclusion using culture as an opportunity to push civic engagement. If you’re reading this and you decided not to go to at least one 90×90 event, I feel quite comfortable calling you a bad person. Handle yourself. Get involved. This 90-day sprint will keep the LA arts community in great shape.

    Photos by Alexia Lewis

  • Sprüth Magers: : Analia Saban

    Sprüth Magers: : Analia Saban

    The strategic manipulation and disorientation of material: concrete, paper, ink, and fiber, link the four distinct series displayed in Analia Saban’s “Folds and Faults.” As the exhibition title alludes, each work either weaves these materials together or ruptures them apart, implying the objects as dualistically latent with the potential to either decay or expand, break apart or coalesce. The materials are further applied in methods contrary to everyday expectation; acrylic paint is used as fiber and woven with linen to create wall pieces that are neither entirely paintings nor sculptures, and linen canvas is presented in photographs so hyper-realistic the viewer experiences the fabric as uncannily tactile. 

    Analia Saban, Draped Concrete (26.25 sq ft), 2016 (detail). Four concrete slabs on wooden sawhorse. 41 1/4 x 192 x 16 7/8 inches. MSPM ASA 27316. © Analia Saban. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.

    Undoubtedly the most significant series is the concrete sculptures, Folded Concrete (Spiral Fold, Accordion Fold, and Gate Fold) (2017) and Draped Concrete (2017). The smoothly poured concrete, discordant with its material properties, is draped over sawhorses and folded like paper; at each crease an aestheticized circular breakage radiates with pristine fissures and cracks. Both the anxiety and beauty of ruin is drawn forward in these pieces, however the deep uncertainty of that ruin is barely scratched. Saban seems to approach the concrete with a predetermined idea of how the breaks should happen, disallowing more instinctive fractures. Despite the ostensible imperfection in the broken concrete, the work is wholly clean and calculated. 

    Analia Saban, Woven Solid as Weft, Square (Black) #1, 2017. Acrylic paint woven through linen canvas on panel. 40 x 40 x 2 3/8 inches. © Analia Saban. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.

    In Threadbare (2017), the destruction of the linen is similarly controlled; thread-by-thread the fabric is unwoven into a contained mess that still retains its original structure and minimalist aesthetics. With these two series the uncontrolled is conveyed through overtly controlled methods, subtly, very subtly, belying the sleek perfection of Minimalism. In a not too dissimilar manner the works with woven fabric and folded paper construct a texturally complicated surface, providing an alternative to slick surface treatment, while still retaining geometric essentialism.

    Analia Saban, “Folds and Faults,” installation view. © Analia Saban. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.

    Analia Saban, “Folds and Faults,” June 28 – August 19, 2017 at Sprüth Magers, 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036, www.spruethmagers.com.